


Cause and Effect

by beebleblack



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Light-Hearted, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 05:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19125358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beebleblack/pseuds/beebleblack
Summary: “Did you just tell me to go out with you?” Lister finally asked.“No, you half-pea-brained-git, I asked you to go out with me,” is what Rimmer would’ve liked to have answered with, but he was tense, still unbelieving that the words had really left his lips. Instead of answering with confidence, he worked his mouth around before a squeak of a response hit. “No, I didn’t.”





	Cause and Effect

It sort of just... blurts out. 

It’s not his fault, it has to be the goit that forced him to just throw up the question. Demand, really. 

It’s a typical evening in their living quarters; a board game set up on the table between them, Kryten had cleaned away Lister’s curry and gave him a six pack of Leopard Lager before departing for the evening’s washing and Cat had left with a comment of needing to preen himself after dinner. 

So, all in all, it was definitely Dave Lister’s fault. The smegging Scouser had made him and their entire situation comfortably domestic. Lister had gone on for years about his plan; how he was going to settle down on what little remained of Fiji with his cat and the girl with the pin-ball smile to breed horses. 

Well, Red Dwarf wasn’t Fiji, but Lister still had a cat, he wasn’t able to breed horses, but he and Kryten were able to breed something questionable from the fungus beneath his toenails. And he might not be Kochanski, but he had done a lot more for Lister than she ever had.

Like, now, for example. He’s rendered Lister completely speechless with his question (demand), that Lister is staring at him, can of lager half way to his lips, unblinking. It’s actually a bit disturbing.

It might be warranted.

They had just been exchanging blithering insults back and forth that felt more like fond compliments than their early-day jabs. There had been a genuine smile on those overly round cheeks, a bubble of a laugh making its way out of his throat and a spark behind those brown eyes that Rimmer got lost in. No wonder he just sort of asked — demanded — “go out with me.” He had forgotten himself because Dave Bloody Lister had let him drown in the moment. 

“Did you just tell me to go out with you?” Lister finally asked.

“No, you half-pea-brained-git, I asked you to go out with me,” is what Rimmer would’ve liked to have answered with, but he was tense, still unbelieving that the words had really left his lips. Instead of answering with confidence, he worked his mouth around before a squeak of a response hit. “No, I didn’t.” 

“Rimmer, you just said ‘go out with me’ in the same way that you normally yell at me for dropping pompadoms into your bunk.” 

“Well, you misheard.” 

“Yeah? What did you really say, then?” 

“Ah... Pass the fish please?” His voice was an octave higher, he tried to clear his throat, drop it down to Ace’s facade. He opens his mouth. And promptly coughs. 

“Right.” Lister nodded, dropping his cards onto the board. “What fish?” 

“The-the, well, you know, fish.” 

“Fish.” 

“Yes. Now drop it.” 

Lister wasn’t taking the bait. The shock had clearly worn off but there was another expression that he couldn’t identify. “Rimmer, man, do you want to go out with me?” 

“Yes — no — of course not,” Rimmer bristled, sitting up straighter and tightening the grip on his cards. 

“Oh.” Lister picked his cards up, glancing over them. “That’s a shame. I was going to say yes.” 

“What?” 

“Yeah, ‘cause, you know, things have changed; Krissie and I were never really a thing — not when she had her own Dave to worry about. And when you were gone, all I could think of was what you were up to. You’re still a smeghead, but you know, I’m not opposed.” Lister shrugged, taking a sip of his lager loudly that should be annoying but Rimmer was too stunned to criticise him. Or to even comment on the foam dribbling from the corner of his mouth for a bit too long before he caught it with the back of his hand. 

God, his mother would chastise him for his choice in affections; never mind the gay thing. 

“I had this dream a few times, got to be twenty years ago now, after you left.” Lister continued and Rimmer swallowed, “you came back, all bacofoiled up without the wig and I kissed you. Thought at first I’d finally gone space crazy. Turns out, I just missed you, man. And simulants already assume we’re a smegging married couple, so why not?” 

“So, why not?” He parroted, “that’s your reasoning? Not because you might hold some likeness for me, but because the girl of your dreams skipped on?” 

“That, and I’m not getting any younger.” Lister replied nonchalantly. 

“Oh. I get it. I’m the only option.” Rimmer said definitively. “Cat wouldn’t touch you even after you’ve been through the decontamination shower and Kryten’s been playing the role of your mother for the past fifteen years; I’m sure that counts as some sort of incest.” 

“He has some interesting groinal attachments.”

“Oh, so Kryten said no?”

“Don’t think he’s as interested as I am.”

“Great. Fan-smegging-tastic!” Like everything else, he probably rated lower than the grime on G-Deck. Possibly even lower considering the shower drain. Lister doesn’t hold any sort of feelings for him, why would he? He probably doesn’t go around thinking they’re a domestic married couple with two kids in a camper-van going from small town to small town. 

(Smegging git and he’s smegging goited romance films!)

“Calm down, guy, you don’t want your bee to glitch.” Lister warned; leaning across the table. 

Rimmer can feel the glitch happening, the twitch in his right eye, the downward tug of the corner of his lip. He’s not resentful, he’s not.

“I am calm.” He said, not at all calmly, “why wouldn’t I be calm? It’s not like I just asked you out and got told I’m just a convenient pass time like an old chewed-up dog’s toy without my feelings being taken into consideration. It’s not like I’ve been sitting on wanting to share my bunk with you for the past couple of years or even try kissing your stupid rodent face when you smile that ridiculous smile that makes me feel like some pre-pubescent teenager.

“It’s not like I want to be the one you come to when you’re having those down days and just hold you and tell you it’ll be fine, that we’ll get to Earth by any means necessary. It’s not like I’ve been dreaming up any of those smegging fantasies where I’m the captain and you’re that messy, bad-boy officer who throws me down and has their wicked way with me because you want a bloody promotion and I let you. It’s not like I’ve been —“ 

Wait. Oh, smeg! Smegging goiting smeg! 

Panic rose fast after all the words tumbled out in a rush and he shoved his fist into his mouth to stop the onslaught of all that he’s thought about. He can feel his breathing hasten, the panic attack constricting his lungs and now their large sleeping quarters felt too small like their first given quarters when he first joined. In one moment Rimmer was trying to get off of his stool and in the next Lister’s hands cupped either side of his face. This was new. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Lister’s voice was calm, soothing almost and those large brown eyes so inviting, so open. “Yeah, keep looking at me. Breathe when I breathe, alright? In. Out.” 

Rimmer watched as Lister took deep breathes, demonstrating the most automatic thing a human can do. With his fist still in his mouth, he followed the pattern. 

“That’s it,” Lister said, his thumbs making a path along his cheekbones back and forth. “Keep going.” 

Dumbly, Rimmer nodded. 

“I’m sorry, man; I just wanted you to admit you asked me out. I didn’t mean for you to get worked up about it. I’ve been thinking the same; how you and me are comfortable with each other, that things have kind of changed to be a bit more... I don’t know.” Lister shrugged, ”but I’d like to go out with you and maybe try some of those things you mentioned. Including your weird authority kink.” 

Rimmer swallowed around his fist. Lister wanted to go out with him? Actually wanted to go out with him? Date him? Have a romantic relationship with him? Possibly have sex with him?

“I can see what you’re doing, you silly smegger. Is it really that hard for you to believe that I might actually feel the same?” 

“Yes.” He answered with his fist around his mouth. Lister chuckled and smiled fondly, taking his hand from his mouth to place it between his own. 

“Well, I do. I wasn’t lying when I said I missed you when you were out there as Ace or that I dreamt of kissing you.” 

“You really want to go out with me? Me who you once compared to being as charming and seductive as a wet piece of celery?” 

“Hey, you told me I had the same appeal as the waste disposal unit, smell and all, remember?”

“Touché.” 

“So, yes. I want to go out with you. Do you want to go out with me?” Lister waggled his eyebrows. 

“Yes. But I can’t promise I’m any good at it.” 

“It’s been a while for me too.”

“It’s been a while for you; it’s been my entire life and death for me.”

“I’ll show you the ropes. We’ll go slow.”

Rimmer searched those large brown eyes for any sign that this was a trick. There was nothing but pure honesty and that scared him more. “Slow.” He agreed, fighting back the voice that told him to run and go hide in the storage cabinet.

“Brutal. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“Lister, we live in the same room.” 


End file.
